St Patrick's Day

Site Issues 2008 Archive Room
#1

Mary and Joseph are newly-weds, and they are expecting their first child.
It’s a stormy night and Mary has almost reached full-term.

Joseph is concerned for the animals and decides to go visit the stable to be sure all is well. Mary goes along to hold the lamp while Joseph checks the stall.

While they’re checking the stalls, Mary’s waters break and she immediately experiences severe laour pains, perhaps, induced by the storm. Joseph gathers himself, runs to the house and calls out the doctor. The doctor arrives just in time, as mary is about to give birth.

Kneeling between Mary’s legs in one of the stalls, the doctor prepares to assist with the birth, the Doctor instructs Joseph to stand by with the lamp.

Doctor: “Hold the light close, Joseph, the baby is coming!”

the baby slides out smoothly -

Doctor: “You’ve a fine baby boy, Joseph, you should be very proud of Mary!”

Joseph: “Yes. I am, Doctor!”

Doctor: “Quickly, Joseph, hold the light somethings happening!”

another baby is expelled -

Doctor: “Ah, tis fine baby girl you have, Joseph! A ready made family, for sure!”

Joseph: “Yes, Doctor, I’m very proud, so I am!”

More movement between Mary’s legs

Doctor: " Quickly Joseph give me some light, here comes another - it’s another fine baby boy!"

Joseph: "Do you think it’s the light that’s attracting them, Doctor?"

#2

This pic is about 20 years before I did it in the early 1960s, but it’s the best I can find and it looks about the same as far as the kids and brothers / priests in the procession are concerned. We were taught to march from day one at school. A lot of military units nowadays couldn’t manage that curve as well. (Being on tram tracks helped.) Notice the boys have their caps in their right hands, in deference. How things have changed. Most kids nowadays don’t have school caps, or even heads to put them on. And those that do put them on backwards. There’s progress for you. :wink:

Worst St Pat’s march I did was about 1962-63 when a mate and I told our parents we’d be staying at each others’ places but stayed up most of the night in my tree house and I ate a huge packet of peanuts in the shells, including the shells.

My arse leaked all the way down Bourke Street and up Spring Street to St Patrick’s Cathedral behind Archbishop Mannix’s big ?Cadillac convertible up the front of the show. If I was a horse, they’d have needed a front end loader behind me.

Not long after the last St Pat’s Day march the whole school, along with most other Catholic schools, got paraded at St Pat’s Cathedral to view the late Archbishop Mannix’s body lying in state. I thought we’d been dudded and given a papier mache likeness, but I didn’t realise that that’s what people looked like a few days after they’d died and been prettied up by some embalmer for pointless public viewing.